Property funds, equity release, debt and pensions

Standard Life Investments has become the latest financial institution to announce plans to reopen its suspended property fund after declaring that the commercial property market had stabilised, The Times reports. The announcement that its UK Real Estate Fund and associated feeder funds would be reopened on October 17 is regarded as an important move as it was the first fund to suspend trading after the Brexit vote. It was one of several funds to apply discounts and suspend trading in July after what it described as ‘an unprecedented level of redemptions’ after the European Union referendum. Equity release

Annual growth of £198 million in equity release lending between the first half of 2015 and 2016 is the highest level seen for over a decade, according to the autumn 2016 Equity Release Market Report from the Equity Release Council.

Consumer demand for releasing housing wealth to help fund later life is continuing to grow, with lending in the second quarter of 2016 exceeding £500 million for the first time and setting a new record for the highest quarterly lending total.

Debt

The number of people struggling with debts to rent-to-own firms and on guarantor loans rose by 16 per cent in the second quarter, as borrowers no longer able to get payday loans move to other, less heavily regulated forms of borrowing, according to The Guardian.